Revija za univerzalno odličnost / Journal of Universal Excellence, Članek / Article 
December 2020, leto / year 9, številka / number 4, str. / pp. 357-371. 
* Korespondenčni avtor / Correspondence author 357 
Prejeto: 20. junij 2020; revidirano: 29. junij 2020; sprejeto: 2. november 2020. /  
Received: 20th June 2020; revised: 29th June 2020; accepted: 2nd November 2020. 
DOI: 10.37886/ruo.2020.022 
 
Family-centered care: a scoping review 
 
Andreja Krajnc
*
 
Visoka Zdravstvena Šola v Celju, Mariborska cesta 7, 3000 Celje, Slovenia 
akrajnc9@gmail.com 
 
Mateja Berčan 
Alma Mater Europaea – European centre Maribor, Slovenska ulica 17, 2000 Maribor, 
Slovenia 
mateja.bercan@siol.net 
 
 
Abstract: 
Research Question (RQ): How is family-centered care perceived in scientific literature? 
Purpose: To provide a scoping review of the literature about family-centred care. 
Method: In databases we searched for the articles using the following searching terms: ‘family-
centered care,’ ‘family centeredness,’ ‘family nursing,’ and ‘partnering with families.’ We 
gradually excluded the articles that did not meet our conditions. The articles that met our 
conditions were thematically analysed. 
Results: We identified five core characteristics of family-centered care: the importance of 
communication, involvement of patients and family members, support to family members, 
organisational aspects, and the importance of nurses’ attitudes. We stressed that family-centered 
care proposes a systematic solution which strives to optimize the level of satisfaction of all 
included parties, because it perceives healthcare process as an intersubjective reality in which all 
of the involved parties mutually depend on each other.  
Organization: The results of this study might be applied and taken into account in designing a 
program of healthcare. 
Society: The results of this study propose a systematic solution for delivering health care that 
would improve wellbeing of all included parties. 
Originality: The article offers a thematical analysis of the literature and at the same time 
synthetizes the main characteristic of family-centered care.  
Limitations / further research: Only articles published in English language were included. We 
did not differentiate between different types of healthcare environment. 
 
Keywords: family-centered care, family centeredness, partnering with families, family nursing, 
healthcare, scoping review, communication, systematic solutions 
 
1 Introduction 
Families are important units of our society. Members of the same family are closely 
connected and therefore mutually depend on each other. Family is an important concept in the 
process of health care as well. Individual patients most often belong to one or more family 
units, and it is, therefore, crucial that this fact is taken into account in organizing and 
designing healthcare processes. “Family-centered care” is an expression which is used in 
health care sciences to denote the type of health care which does not concentrate only on 
patient and patient’s individual needs, but at the same time includes patient’s family, because 

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it treats patient and his family as one recipient of health care services. The practice of family-
centered care is thus juxtaposed to patient-centered care which concentrates only on an 
individual patient and does not systematically involve patient’s family in the health care 
process.  
In order to conduct a research concerning family-centered care, one has to be familiar with the 
findings of other scientists about this topic and thus ought to place oneself into the broader 
context of the state of research. The past few decades have seen a significant number of 
studies dedicated to the concept of family-centered care. The concept has developed to such 
an extent, that there is a need to delineate its basic characteristics as they are present in 
contemporary researches and theories. Thus, the aim of the present article is to provide a 
scoping review of the articles that were written and published on the topic of family-centered 
care in the last eight years and to identify the basic features of the concept of family-centered 
care. Our research question is, therefore, how family-centered care is perceived in 
contemporary scientific literature. We will conduct a thematical analysis of methodically 
selected articles and try to extrapolate the basic characteristics of family-centered care that the 
contemporary researchers suggest.  
2 Theoretical framework 
The concept of family-centered care is relatively recent. It has its origins in pediatric care 
which underwent the process of modification after World War II. This modification took 
place due to the growing awareness that for optimizing child care, parents should be part of 
the healthcare process and that children should not be left alone in the hospitals. In this 
regard, the researches of James Robertson and John Bowlby were pivotal (Bowlby 1944a; 
Bowlby 1944b; Robertson & Bowlby 1952; Robertson 1970). The importance of family-
centered care was gradually acknowledged in all fields of healthcare deliverance. Due to their 
vicinity and continuous engagement with the patients, nurses were the first to change their 
working habits as they had to invite and successfully include family members in the process 
of healthcare (Joolley & Shields, 2009, p. 167). 
Different authors tried to define what Family-centered care is (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 105; 
Deek et al., 2015, p. 970; Hsu et al., 2019, p. 1; Johnson, 2000; Joolley & Shields, 2009; 
Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & Cameron, 2019, p. 5; Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 1; 
Mitchell, Chaboyer, Burmeister, & Foster, 2009, p. 543; Park, Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2018, 
p. 69). According to the Institute for Family-centered Care, family-centered care is “an 
approach to the planning, delivery, and evaluation of healthcare that is governed by mutually 
beneficial partnerships between healthcare providers, patients, and families” (Kovacs, Bellin, 
& Fauri, 2006, p. 14). The same institute further specifies the principles of family-centered 
care. The concept of family-centered care is closely linked to, or almost identical with the 
concept of family-focused care which is also mentioned by some scholars, and was as such at 
first introduced in pediatric care (Deek et al., 2015, p. 970). Family-centered care formalizes 
each patient and the patient’s family as a unit of care (Mitchell, Chaboyer, Burmeister, & 

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Foster, 2009, p. 543) and embraces them as the care-clients (Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & 
Cameron, 2019, p. 2). It is respectful and responsive not only to patients’ needs and values, 
but also to the needs and values of their family members (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 105).  
Park, Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go (2018, pp. 69) identified most common aspects of family-
centered care. With regard to patients, family-centered care aims at improving their 
knowledge about their health, increasing skills to manage self-care behaviors, enhancing 
satisfaction, increasing quality of life, and reducing the length of their hospital stays; 
regarding family members, family-centered care tries to reduce the intensity of stress; 
regarding health care providers, family-centered care interventions could improve job 
satisfaction and confidence, quality of care, and reduce stress and burnout. 
The distinguishing characteristic of family-centered care which differentiates it from other 
models of health care is that family centered care considers the family of a patient as integral 
to the process of health care (Mitchell, Chaboyer, Burmeister, & Foster, 2009, p. 534). The 
family of a patient is not regarded as an obstacle external to the process of health care, but, on 
the contrary, as a resource which should be appropriately integrated into the health care 
processes (Whiston, Barry, O’Keane, & Darker, 2018, p. 9). The advantage of such an 
approach is twofold. On the one hand, family members participate in health care of a patient 
and thus relieve health care providers of some of their work and at the same time improve the 
quality of health care (Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 1). On the other hand family 
members feel fulfilled and satisfied, because they are involved in the health care process and 
know what is happening with their beloved one (Park, Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2018, p. 69). 
Despite positive impact that family members can have on the process of health care, some 
researchers point to possible shortcomings of family-centered care. One of the issues is that 
family-centered care can additionally complicate the work of health care providers. The 
research conveyed by Luttik et al. (2016, p. 3) showed, that some nurses regarded patients’ 
families as a burden which caused them additional stress. The presence of such critiques of 
family-centered care calls for a systematic, organizational model of family-centered care, 
which takes into account all included parties, i.e., patients, their family members, and health 
care providers (Foster et al., 2016, pp. 21–22). 
From the abovementioned suggestions of different scholars, we can define family-centered 
care as a model of care that takes into account the system of relationships between the patient, 
family members, and health care providers. The underlying presupposition for such treatment 
is a relational approach which understands a human being primarily as an intersubjective 
reality that can be fully comprehended only from its intersubjective context. Patients and their 
family members are thus not only passive recipients of health care process, but are 
acknowledged as active subjects who are as such crucial in planning and delivering of health 
care. 

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3 Method 
We conducted a thematic analysis of scientific literature dedicated to the concept of family-
centered care and its characteristics. We searched for the literature in the following databases: 
CINAHL, PubMed, Medline, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. The search terms ‘family-
centered care,’ ‘family centeredness,’ ‘family nursing,’ and ‘partnering with families’ were 
used. All searches were limited to English language and the period from 2012–2020. We 
searched only for the articles that were available in full access. We used the program EndNote 
to arrange the literature and remove duplicates. 
After the first search we identified 1232 papers which met our searching conditions. We 
excluded 71 duplicates. We have analyzed abstracts, titles, and key words of the remaining 
1161 articles, and further exclude 1040 articles. Our exclusion criteria) were: (1) an article 
addresses only one of our search terms and does not place it in the broader context of family-
centered care; (2) an abstract does not contain the word “family-centered” or its synonym; (3) 
an abstract does not link family-centered care with nursing (see also Table 2). After reading 
and comparing the remaining 121 articles, we additionally excluded 103 articles which we 
deemed to be irrelevant for our research, because they did not contain any definition of 
family-centered care or did not suggest at least one characteristic of family-centered care 
(exclusion criterion 4). We included 18 articles into the final thematical analysis. After 
conducting a thematical analysis we excluded additional three articles because they did not 
offer a comprehensive and clear definition of family-centered care (exclusion criterion 5). 
Thus, our thematical analysis was conducted on the basis of 15 articles. For a PRISMA 
diagram of our method, see Figure 1. For a list of the articles, together with their Index Factor 
(IF) see Table 1. For a list of the exclusion criteria see Table 2. 
 
 
Text analyzed 
(n = 121) 
Abstracts analyzed 
(n = 1161) 
Articles identified through 
database searching 
(n = 1232) 
Included in thematic analysis 
(n = 15) 
Excluded due to criteria 1, 2, 3 
(n = 1040) 
Duplicates removed 
(n = 71) 
Excluded due to criteria 4 
(n = 103) 
Excluded due to criteria 5 
(n = 3)  
 
Figure 1 PRISMA diagram of our systematic review 

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Table 1 The list of analyzed articles 
 Author IF of the journal 
1) Hertel et al., 2019 3.008 
2) Petry, Ernst, Seinbrüchel-Boesch, Altherr, & Naef, 2019 3.783 
3) Deek et al., 2015 2.561 
4) Foster et al, 2016 1.146* (in 2017) 
5) Wolff et al., 2017 2.607 
6) Mitchell, Chaboyer, Burmeister, & Foster, 2009 2.105* 
7) Luttik et al., 2016 2.296 
8) Davidson et al., 2017 7.414* 
9) Benzein, Johansson, Årestedt, Berg, &  
Saveman, 2008 
1.889 
10) Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & Cameron, 2019 1.987* 
11) Mackie, Mitchell, & Marshall, 2019 
1.795
*
 
12) Gusdal, Josefsson, Adolfsson, & Martin, 2016 2.562* 
13) Whiston, Barry, O’Keane, & Darker, 2018 0.646* 
14) Hsu et al., 2019 2.29* 
15) Park, Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2018 3.783 
Note: *The information about the IF was not included in SSCI. We have obtained it from Scimago Journal and 
Country Rank, avaliable on: https://www.scimagojr.com/ 
 
 
 
Table 2 The exclusion criteria 
Number Exlusion criterion 
1) The article addresses only one of our search terms and does not place it in the broader context of 
family-centered care 
2) The abstract does not contain the word “family-centered” or its synonym 
3) The abstract does not link family-centered care with nursing 
4) The article does not contain any definition of family-centered care or does not suggest at least one 
characteristic of family-centered care at all 
5) The article does not offer a comprehensive and clear definition of family-centered care 
 
4 Results 
In conducting a thematical analysis, our main aim was to individualize aspects which were 
most often addressed and stressed in the reviewed articles (see Table 3). These aspects are 
central for contemporary family-centered care. We have identified five key aspects of family 
centered care: communication; involvement of patients and family members; support to 
family members; organizational aspects and suggestions; attitude of nurses (see Figure 2). 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Figure 2. Family-centered care and its aspects 
 
Involvement 
Attitude of 
nurses 
Organization 
Support 
Family-centered 
care 
Communication 

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Table 3. The list of key findings of the analyzed articles 
 Author Key findings 
1) Hertel et al., 2019 Including patients as equal partners in healthcare is beneficent for all parties. 
Organization design can improve participation of patients. 
2) Petry, Ernst, 
Seinbrüchel-Boesch, 
Altherr, & Naef, 
2019 
Seven core dimensions were identified. In relation to care for persons with 
cognitive impairment, caring attentiveness and responsiveness were important; 
family members valued access to staff and information, participation in care, 
and support over time. On a system level, available resources and the hospital 
infrastructure were integral to their experience of hospitalization. 
3) Deek et al., 2015 Involving the family in self-care has shown positive results for patients with 
chronic conditions. 
4) Foster et al, 2016 Six core and inter-related family-focused practices: family care planning and 
goal-setting; liaison between families and services; instrumental, emotional and 
social support; assessment; psychoeducation; and a coordinated system of 
care between families and services. 
5) Wolff et al., 2017 Patients who delegated decision making are less active and think low of their 
abilities. 
Companions facilitate communication with health staff. 
Ambiguity in companion’s understanding of patient’s needs can have negative 
impact.  
6) Mitchell, Chaboyer, 
Burmeister, & 
Foster, 2009 
Partnering with patients’ family members to provide fundamental care to the 
patients significantly improves the respect, collaboration, support, and overall 
scores on the family-centered care survey at 48 hours. 
7) Luttik et al., 2016 In general, nurses viewed the family as important in care. 
Attitudes towards actively inviting families to take part in patient care were less 
positive.  
Higher educational level of nurses is associated with more positive attitudes 
toward family involvement in healthcare. 
8) Davidson et al., 
2017 
Guidelines for family-centered care regarding: communication with family 
members, family presence, family support, consultations and intensive care unit 
team members, and operational and environmental issues. 
9) Benzein, Johansson, 
Årestedt, Berg, & 
Saveman, 2008 
Article describes the development and testing of a research instrument, 
Families’ Importance in Nursing Care–Nurses’ Attitudes (FINC-NA), 
designed to measure nurses’ attitudes about the importance of involving 
families in nursing care. 
10) Kokorelias, Gignac, 
Naglie, & Cameron, 
2019 
Key components to facilitate family-centered care are: collaboration between 
family members and health care providers; consideration of family contexts; 
policies and procedures; patient, family, and health care professional education.  
11) Mackie, Mitchell, & 
Marshall, 2019 
Most patients and families perceived staff communication as disconnected and 
inadequate, which constrained them from engaging in care processes or 
decision-making.  
When family felt empowered and participated in patient care, the quality of 
health care was enhanced. 
12) Gusdal, Josefsson, 
Adolfsson, & 
Martin, 2016 
Registered nurses were supportive of families’ involvement.  
Attitudes toward inviting families to actively take part in heart failure nursing 
care were less supportive. 
Factors predicting the most supportive attitudes were to have a postgraduate 
specialization, education in cardiac and/or heart failure nursing care, and a 
competence to work with families. 
13) Whiston, Barry, 
O’Keane, & Darker, 
2018 
Patients and family members need to be updated in how their opinions are used. 
14) Hsu et al., 2019 Identification of key components of diginity and respect in family-centered care: 
building relationship; providing individualized care; respecting patients’ 
time. 
15) Park, Giap, Lee, 
Jeong, & Go, 2018 
The literature review showed that patient- and family-centered care could be a 
critical approach for improving the quality of health care. 
 

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4.1 Communication 
Communication is one of the defining characteristics of any intersubjective reality. Several of 
the articles that we analyzed in our review emphasized the importance of proper and correct 
sharing of information in family-centered care. This was done either by stressing positive 
aspects of proper communication (Davidson et al., 2017, 106; Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & 
Cameron, 2019, p. 6; Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 7; Park, Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go, 
2019, p. 81; Petry, Ernst, Seinbrüchel-Boesch, Altherr, & Naef, 2019, p. 44) or by pointing to 
the negative consequences of poor, disconnected communication (Mackie, Michell, & 
Marshall, 2019, p. 2). One of the factors of disconnected communication is poor health 
literacy of patients and family members, which often significantly decreases their 
involvement and participation in care (Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 2). Thus, some 
authors stress the importance of education about care provision and disease (Kokorelias, 
Gignac, Naglie, & Cameron, 2019, p. 6) as well as the importance of education in relation to 
post-hospitalization phase (Petry, Ernst, Seinbrüchel-Boesch, Altherr, & Naef, 2019, p. 44). 
Sharing of the information should be conducted in a way that improves the understanding of 
patients and their family members (Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 7). On the other 
hand, health care providers are often neglectful of poor health literacy of patients and family 
members (Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 1). Some authors stressed the importance of 
education and training of health care providers (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 106; Park, Giap, 
Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2019, p. 81) which facilities communication, prepares health care 
providers for work with patients and family members with different levels of health literacy, 
and enables health care providers to determine needs and shortcoming of patients and their 
families (Foster et al., 2016, pp. 19–20). Of all the health care providers Nurses spend the 
most time engaged in direct patient care and it is therefore essential they communicate 
effectively (Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 7). Communication between two parties is 
always two-sided and for this reason it is crucial that health care providers have an insight 
into the state of patients through unique and special expertise that only patients and their 
family members can provide (Mackie, Michell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 8). 
4.2 Involvement of patients and family members 
One of the defining characteristics of family-centered care is the active role of patient and 
family members in the process of health care. The articles that were taken into our review 
used two terms to address activity of patients and family members in health care processes: 
involvement (Deek et al., 2015, p. 976; Hertel et al., 2019, p. 44; Mitchell, Chaboyer, 
Burmeister, & Foster, 2009, p. 551); and participation (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 106; Park, 
Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2019, p. 81; Petry, Ernst, Seinbrüchel-Boesch, Altherr, & Naef, 
2019, p. 44; Whiston, Barry, O’Keane, & Darker, 2018, p. 9). These two terms are 
interconnected and were used interchangeably. Whiston, Barry, O’Keane, and Darker (2018, 
p. 8) define patient and family participation as follows: “Patient and family participation is 
when the views and experiences of patients and families are sought and taken into account in 
healthcare.” The idea of patient involvement follows from the premise that patients should be 

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provided with holistic care (Mitchell, Chaboyer, Burmeister, & Foster, 2009, p. 551) and is 
thus intrinsically linked to the concept of family-centered care which stresses the importance 
of the intersubjective unit of care that consists of a patient, family members, and health care 
providers. Patients and family members can be involved in the process of health care on 
various levels. They can participate in main activities of care, they can be involved in the 
sharing of information, and they can participate in joint-decision making (Park, Giap, Lee, 
Jeong, & Go, 2019, p. 81). The importance of participation in healthcare has been established 
globally (Whiston, Barry, O’Keane, & Darker, 2018, p. 9). It leads to a greater satisfaction of 
patients, family members, and health care providers (Hertel et al., 2019, p. 44), it shows 
improved outcomes in health care processes (Deek et al., 2015, p. 976), and it helps patients 
and family members to maintain control over patients’ care plan and delivering (Kokorelias, 
Gignac, Naglie, & Cameron, 2019, pp. 5–6). An important aspect of involvement of family 
members in health care processes is also the positive effect they can have on the patient 
(Mackie, Michell, & Marshal, 2019, pp. 6–7). However, health care providers sometimes 
express their scruples toward involving family members in health care process (Luttik et al., 
2016, 9). Mitchell, Chaboyer, Burmeister, & Foster (2009, p. 544) suggest that such scruples 
could originate in the complexity of their work, while other authors pointed out that low 
experience and education could be the cause for the scruples (Luttik et al., 2016, p. 7). 
4.3 Support to family members 
Another aspect of family-centered care that was often stressed by the authors is support 
provided to family members and patients (Petry, Ernst, Seinbrüchel-Boesch, Altherr, & Naef, 
2019, pp. 44; Park, Giap, Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2018, pp. 81; (Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & 
Cameron, 2019, 6). Family members and patients can receive different kind of support such 
as instrumental (practical), emotional, and social (broadening social skills) support (Foster et 
al., 2016, p. 16). Physical support is an important part of family-centered care (Park, Giap, 
Lee, Jeong, & Go, 2018, p. 81). Family members can experience negative impact on their 
own well-being and in such situation, it is crucial that models of family-centered care are 
supportive of them (Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & Cameron, 2019, p. 6). In general, 
supporting family members increases their satisfaction and this is intrinsically connected with 
including family members in health care processes (Petry, Ernst, Seinbrüchel-Boesch, Altherr, 
& Naef, 2019, p. 50). However, some authors identified possible negative impacts of the 
family members’ support, especially due to ambiguity in their understanding of patient 
perspectives (Wolff et al., 2017, p. 492). 
4.4 Organizational aspects and suggestions 
Any system of interconnected factors is itself more than just a sum of its parts. The concept of 
family-centered care builds upon this supposition. Thus, several authors stressed the 
importance of organizational solutions in the sphere of family-centered care. In practice this 
means that special policies implemented that would promote family-centered care should be 
implemented (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 118). Usually authors suggested that the institution 

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which provides health care should also establish policies that would incorporate needs and 
demands of their employees, patients, and family members (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 106; 
Kokorelias, Gignac, Naglie, & Cameron, 2019, p. 7). Authors proposed policies that would 
build communication skills of health care providers (Davidson et al. 2017, p. 106). Another 
important aspect of proposed policies was encouraging family and patient participation in 
health care (Foster et al., 2016, pp. 21–22). Such policies should cover different aspects of 
family-centered care such as family presence, family support, communication, and operational 
and environmental issues (Davidson et al., 2017, p. 106–107). 
4.5 Attitudes of nurses 
One of the dynamics which was pointed out by the authors is the relationship between 
readiness or capability of healthcare providers to involve patients and family members and 
between the quality of health care (Luttik et al. 2016, p. 2). The quality of the encounter is 
likely to be influenced by the attitude nurses hold towards family role. To hold positive and 
supportive attitudes is essential for inviting and involving families in nursing care, while 
negative attitudes lead nurses to minimalize family involvement (Gusdal, Josefsson, 
Adolfsson, & Martin 2016, pp. 256–257). Benzin et al. (2008) provided an instrument which 
measures nurses’ attitudes about the importance of families in nursing care. This instrument 
was further used by Luttik et al. (2016) and Gusdal, Josefsson, Adolfsson, & Martin (2017). 
Nurses are of special importance in providing health care because they spend the most time 
with patients and family members (Mackie, Mitchell, & Marshall, 2019, p. 7) 
Comparing these two studies, one can see that they both reached similar conclusions. 
Generally, nurses are supportive of families’ involvement (Gusdal, Josefsson, Adolfsson, & 
Martin, 2017, p. 256) and agree that presence of family members is important (Luttik et al., 
2016, p. 3). However, both studies reported that attitudes toward inviting family to actively 
took part in patient’s care were less positive (Gusdal, Josefsson, Adolfsson, & Martin, 2017, 
p. 256; Luttik et al., 2016, p. 9). The difference appeared between opinion of older, more 
experienced nurses and younger nurses with less education. More experienced and more 
educated nurses had more positive opinion about family involvement (Gusdal, Josefsson, 
Adolfsson, & Martin, 2017, p. 256; Luttik et al., 2016, p. 9). While trying to identify the 
reasons for this trend, both studies stressed the fact that younger nurses are more focused on 
individual patient and more occupied with their own learning (Gusdal, Josefsson, Adolfsson, 
& Martin, 2017, p. 256; Luttik et al., 2016, p. 262). The presence of family makes them feel 
that they are checked-up and cause them additional stress (Luttik et al., 2016, p. 4). 
Both studies stressed the importance of education on the importance of families and active 
family involvement in patient care (Luttik et al., 2016, p. 9; Gusdal, Josefsson, Adolfsson, & 
Martin, 2017, p. 262) and thus both argued for a solution on organizational level. Gusdal, 
Josefsson, Adolfsson, & Martin (2014, p. 262) Suggested that older, more experienced nurses 
could be encouraged to guide and mentor their younger and less experienced colleagues to 
strengthen their supportive attitudes toward families. 

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5 Discussion 
We identified five main characteristics of family-centered care that were stressed by the 
articles that were taken into account in our review. These are the importance of 
communication, involvement of family and family members, support to family members, 
organizational aspects and suggestions, and attitudes of nurses towards involvement of family 
members. From the abovementioned results and suggestions, we can draw some conclusions. 
The first is the importance of relations between patients, family members, and health care 
providers for effective and successful health care. This is something which can be already 
concluded from our definition of family-centered care as an intersubjective reality. 
Intersubjectiveness of family-centered care is clearly visible especially in the importance of 
relations between involved parties, which make the whole system more than just a sum of its 
parts. On many places it was stressed that satisfaction of all involved parties somehow 
depends on appropriate relations. This is the reason why many authors stressed the 
importance of proper communication that allows patient, family members, and heath care 
providers to properly express their needs, opinions, and demands. 
Involvement of patients and family members on various levels of health process was also an 
important aspect that frequently appeared in the reviewed articles. As such, it is based in one 
of the basic convictions of family-centered care, i.e., that patient and family members form a 
unit of care and that is therefore crucial that they are somehow involved in the process of 
healthcare. Family involvement is also based upon the fact that family-centered care 
acknowledges special expertise of patients and their families which can contribute to the 
success of the health care process. Thus, involvement of family members improves the 
outcome of healthcare and at the same time also increases satisfaction of patients, healthcare 
providers, and family members. 
On proper communication and relations depends also support which is needed by family 
members. Crucial in delivering support to family members is ability of health care providers 
to correctly assess health literacy and other abilities of family members and patient. 
Almost all analyzed articles expressed the need for organizational solutions for the challenges 
that had been encountered. Such approach is again based on the premise that by establishing 
proper relations challenges can be efficiently addressed and solved. Organizational solutions 
exceed the limits of each included party, and arrange such parties in a way that optimizes 
satisfaction of all included parties. Organizational solutions are crucial for family-centered 
care because they take into account all included parties. Frequent mentioning of the need for 
policies that would arrange different aspects of family-centered care is an example of need for 
organizational solutions. Organizational solutions are as such able to take into consideration 
satisfaction of all parties and do not concentrate only on one of the parties. 
On the side of healthcare providers there are especially nurses who are in constant touch with 
patients and family members. For family-centered care it is crucial that nurses are able to 
establish proper relations with patients and family members, because only in this way patients 

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December 2020, leto / year 9, številka / number 4, str. / pp. 357-371. 
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and family members can attain a greater level of satisfaction. The instrument developed by 
Benzein, Johansson, Årestedt, Berg, & Saveman (2008) is very important in this domain, 
because it measures attitudes of nurses toward family involvement and identifies factors 
which influence nurses’ attitudes. When nurses hold negative attitude toward involvement of 
family members in process of health care, the outcomes of healthcare are less effective. We 
can understand this fact from intersubjective character of every health care process. When 
proper relations are somehow damaged and are not fostered, this diminishes the level of final 
effectiveness and of satisfaction of all parties. Thus, it is important to understand what are the 
reasons for negative attitudes toward involving family members in healthcare process, 
because only in this way we can address them and try to surpass them with a solution on a 
systematical level which takes into consideration all included parties. 
6 Conclusion 
Family-centered care is a model of healthcare that takes into consideration all the parties 
included in health care process and tries to optimize the outcomes. Its basic conviction is that 
patients, healthcare providers and family members are all factors in a system and that 
therefore their satisfaction is interconnected. For optimization of satisfaction of all parties, 
family-centered care offers a systematic solution that takes into account all the parties 
involved. Crucial for such solution is proper and correct communication which is a basic 
dynamic of any intersubjective reality. Communication depends on many factors that should 
be addressed by correct policies. An important factor in family-centered care are the attitudes 
of nurses toward involvement of family members in health care processes. This problem was 
addressed by some authors who understood attitudes of nurses not only as their own 
conviction, but also as a factor that influences the effectiveness of health care. For this 
purpose, Benzein, Johansson, Årestedt, Berg, & Saveman (2008) developed a special 
instrument that measures and determines factors that influence nurses’ attitudes toward family 
involvement. Results that this instrument gives should be taken into account while preparing 
plans of family-centered care. 
Our scoping-review of the literature on family-centered care contributes to the scientific field 
of health management by identifying the core characteristics of contemporary family-centered 
care theories and individualizing the main challenges. In this regard, our scoping-review 
could serve to managers and the responsible for organizing healthcare processes, because it 
presents demands and needs of both healthcare providers and consumers. 
This scoping review is not without its limitations. Only articles published in English were 
included. We gave priority to the articles that were published during past few years. We did 
not include articles that did not go through peer review. We did not differentiate between 
different types of clinical environments, such as pediatric care, intensive care, etc. We 
concentrated only on articles that were available through the above-mentioned databases. 
Further researches could be conducted on the basis of the results of the present study. One of 
the possibilities would be to carry out a quantitative study of measuring the 

Revija za univerzalno odličnost / Journal of Universal Excellence, Članek / Article 
December 2020, leto / year 9, številka / number 4, str. / pp. 357-371. 
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interconnectedness of nurses’ attitude toward family involvement in healthcare process. Other 
characteristics of family-centered care could be as well a subject of a possible quantitative 
research. 
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this 
article. 
 
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*** 
Andreja Krajnc holds a Master’s degree in social management from the Faculty of Organization Sciences 
(FOV) at the University of Maribor. As a sole proprietor with an obtained concession, she is actively involved in 
community nursing care of individuals, families, and communities. In the pedagogical sphere, she is teaching at 
Bachelor’s degree level as a habilitated lecturer in the field of health care. She actively participates at various 
conferences and symposiums dedicated to nursing and health care, and publishes articles in various Slovenian 
journals. She is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Organization Studies in Novo Mesto. 
 
*** 
Mateja Berčan, PhD is a specialist in gerontological nursing care. She is employed as a private community 
nurse. She is also a Lecturer in study program Social Gerontology and study program Physiotherapy at the Alma 
Mater Europaea-European Centre Maribor. Her career path is focused on researching the palliative care, 
gerontology and nursing care. Since 2012, she has been the authorized supervisor of the Health Insurance 
Institute of Slovenia for the implementation of financial and medical supervision in the field of community 
nursing care and nursing care in social welfare institutions. 
 
*** 
 

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Povzetek: 
Na družino osredotočena oskrba: pregled literature 
 
Raziskovalno vprašanje (RV): Kako sodobna znanstvena literatura pojmuje na družino 
osredotočeno oskrbo? 
Namen: Predložiti celosten pregled literature, ki obravnava na družino osredotočeno oskrbo. 
Metoda: Literaturo smo iskali v bazah podatkov, pri tem pa uporabili sledeča iskalna gesla: »na 
družino usmerjena oskrba,« »osredotočenost na družino,« »družinska nega« in »sodelovanje z 
družino.« Postopoma smo izločili članke, ki niso izpolnjevali naših pogojev. Članki, ki so te 
pogoje izpolnjevali, so bili kasneje tematsko analizirani. 
Rezultati: Identificirali smo pet bistvenih značilnosti na družino osredotočene oskrbe: 
pomembnost komunikacije, vključenost pacientov in družinskih članov, podpora družinskim 
članom, organizacijski aspekti, ter odnos medicinskih sester. Poudarili smo, da na družino 
osredotočena oskrba predlaga sistemsko rešitev, ki teži k optimizaciji zadovoljstva vseh vpletenih, 
saj zdravstveno negovalni proces razume kot intersubjektivno realnost v kateri vključeni akterji 
vplivajo druga na drugo. 
Organizacija: Rezultati bi lahko bili uporabljeni in upoštevani pri načrtovanju programa 
zdravstvene nege in oskrbe. 
Družba: Rezultati te študije predlagajo sistemsko rešitev zdravstvene oskrbe, ki bi izboljšala 
dobrobit vseh vpletenih.  
Originalnost: Raziskava vsebuje tematsko analizo literature ter obenem na izviren način 
sintetizira glavne namene na družino osredotočene oskrbe. 
Omejitve/nadaljnje raziskovanje: V pregled smo vključili le članke, ki so bili objavljeni v 
angleškem jeziku. Pri raziskavi nismo ločevali med različnimi okolji v katerih se nudi zdravstvena 
nega. 
 
Ključne besede: na družino usmerjena oskrbe, osredotočenost na družino, sodelovanje z 
družinami, družinska oskrba, zdravstvena nega, pregled literature, komunikacija, sistemske rešitve. 
 
Copyright (c) Andreja KRAJNC, Mateja BERČAN 
 
 
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